Report: Smoking bans aid nonsmokers' hearts

Health

Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press

Published
4:00 am PDT, Friday, October 16, 2009

Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle

Image 1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

Kelly Bart left and Kristina Wong both from San Francisco take a break from work and have a cigarette on Market Street just steps from Walgreen's Drugs. Supervisor Chris Daly wants to restrict smoking even more than it already is, this would include areas within twenty feet of entrances to private, nonresidential buildings and more. Photographed in San Francisco July15, 2008. By Lance Iversen / The Chronicle less

Kelly Bart left and Kristina Wong both from San Francisco take a break from work and have a cigarette on Market Street just steps from Walgreen's Drugs. Supervisor Chris Daly wants to restrict smoking even more ... more

Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle

Report: Smoking bans aid nonsmokers' hearts

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

Bans on smoking in restaurants, bars and other gathering spots reduce the risk of heart attacks among nonsmokers, according to a major report that confirms what health officials long have believed.

"If you have heart disease, you really need to stay away from secondhand smoke. It's an immediate threat to your life," declared Dr. Neal Benowitz of UCSF, who co-wrote Thursday's report from the prestigious Institute of Medicine.

More than 126 million nonsmoking Americans are regularly exposed to someone else's tobacco smoke. The surgeon general in 2006 cited "overwhelming scientific evidence" that, as a result, tens of thousands die each year from heart disease, lung cancer and other illnesses.

Still, smoking bans remain a hard sell, as lawmakers and business owners debate whether such prohibitions are worth the anger of smoking customers or employees. Thursday's report promises to influence that debate.

Among the report's conclusions: While heavier exposure to secondhand smoke is worse, there's no safe level. It also cited "compelling" if circumstantial evidence that even less than an hour's exposure might be enough to push someone already at risk of a heart attack over the edge.

Within minutes, the smoke's pollution-like small particles and other substances can start constricting blood vessels and increasing blood's propensity to clot - key heart attack factors. Because many people don't know they have heart disease until their first heart attack, it is important for everyone to avoid secondhand smoke, Benowitz said.

Since New York led the way in 2003, 21 states plus the District of Columbia now have what the CDC calls comprehensive laws banning smoking in both public and private workplaces, restaurants and bars - with no exception for ventilated smoking areas. Some other states have less restrictive laws.

How much do bans help? That depends on how existing bans were studied and how much secondhand smoke exposure different populations have.

The research team reviewed 11 key studies of smoking bans in parts of the United States, Canada, Italy and Scotland. Those studies found drops in the number of heart attacks that ranged from 6 percent to 47 percent.

Some of the benefit may be to smokers who at least cut back because of public or workplace smoking bans, and may even quit at home, too. But two studies - one in Monroe, Ind., and another in Scotland - as well as a 52-country study of secondhand smoke's heart effects focused particularly on nonsmokers, reassure that the bans do help them, Goldman said.